Britannica's editors are among those who take a skeptical view, noting that Wikipedia publishes a disclaimer stating that it does not vouch for its own validity. "We very much take responsibility for all the content we include in any of our products," said Britannica editor in chief Dale Hoiberg.

He added that Britannica subjects its articles to an editorial review process with at least six stages and works to ensure the content is accurate, comprehensive, balanced, consistent and full of context.

/THE SITE AND ALL INFORMATION, PRODUCTS, AND OTHER CONTENT (INCLUDING THIRD-PARTY INFORMATION, PRODUCTS, AND CONTENT) INCLUDED IN OR ACCESSIBLE FROM THIS SITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND (EXPRESS, IMPLIED, AND STATUTORY, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF TITLE AND NONINFRINGEMENT AND THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE), ALL OF WHICH BRITANNICA EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW./

In regards to Leslie Walker's September 9 article on Wikipedia, Spreading Knowledge, The Wiki Way, you quote Britannica's editor-in-chief Dale Hoiberg as saying that Britannica "take[s] responsibility for all the content we include in any of our products," implicitly scoffing at Wikipedia's disclaimer.

We would like to bring to Dr. Hoiberg's attention the disclaimer of warranties tucked away in Britannica Online's terms of use. Emphasized in all capital letters, it reads in part, 'ALL INFORMATION... INCLUDED IN OR ACCESSIBLE FROM THIS SITE [IS] PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND.... YOUR USE OF BRITANNICA.COM IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK'.

Wikipedia takes great pride in all of its content, and as much responsibility for it as is legally tenable. Online, Britannica appears to do the same.

The Editorial department publishes the editorials, letters to the editor and opinion pages. So as not to compromise the objectivity of the news department, the editorial staff operates independently; its editor, Fred Hiatt, reports directly to The Post's chairman, Donald Graham.

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 08:02:30 -0400 (EDT)
To: editorial@redherring.com
Subject: "Wiki wars" corrections
Dear Red Herring editors,
I was pleased to see an article about wikis, "Wiki wars", on your site
today. However, it contains a few small mistakes. You state that
"Since May, Wikipedia's Mr. Kerry entry has been frozen at least
seven times, while its Mr. Bush page has been locked down almost
as often."
In fact, the article on Kerry has been protected 8 times since May,
and that on Bush 10 times.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AProtection_log
Later, you mention the "Wikipedia Foundation", an organization which
does not exist; the foundation is Wikimedia, with an 'm', and supports
a number of projects aside from Wikipedia.
http://www.wikimediafoundation.org
Now if only your site had a content management system that allowed
visitors to edit a version of it directly, these statements would
have been corrected a bit faster...

(Jimmy Wales said he would view the World Book and Britannica as competitors, but thinks they will be) "crushed out of existence within five years".

"There's no cost to switching from an outdated old encyclopedia to Wikipedia -- just click and learn, and there you go. You can switch before your friends switch, but the knowledge you learn will be perfectly compatible," he said.

Here is a draft letter requesting permission to translate a published article and publicly reproduce the translations (on meta).

Dear [DE.bug],
I enjoyed [Mario Sixtus|Michael Kurzidim]'s recent
[article about Wikipedia|review of encyclopedieas]
(''[Wissen-der-Welt.org|Multimedia-Enzyklopädien]'',
[September 2004|October 2004]). I would like your
permission to translate it into English and other
languages, and to make the translations available
on my own website, with a link to your site as the
original source.
Please let me know whether this could be arranged.
Sincerely,
[author],
Wikipedia editor

(with the parts in [brackets] changing depending on the article in question)

Should this mention the foundation? Be written officially on behalf of the foundation? How should this be addressed -- to the editor of the publication in question, its publisher, or someone else?